(IN)VISIBILITY OF INITIAL TEACHER EDUCATION IN PHYSICS AND MATHEMATICS AT FEDERAL INSTITUTES

A CONTENT ANALYSIS OF OFFICIAL WEBSITE COMMUNICATIONS

Abstract

The objective of this article is to map and analyze the availability of initial teacher education programs in Physics and Mathematics at Brazil’s Federal Institutes, aiming to understand the extent to which these institutions have contributed to teacher training in the Exact Sciences and how they communicate these offerings through their institutional websites. The research, documentary and exploratory in nature, was based on information provided by the Ministry of Education and the institutional websites of the campuses, organizing the data by region, state, and courses offered. Each website was coded based on responses entered into a data matrix, whose results were then evaluated and compared in relation to factors relevant to the communication of the licentiate course offerings at the campuses. The results reveal, from a content analysis conducted on the websites of Brazilian Federal Institutes, that only about 25% of the campuses offer licentiate degrees in Exact Sciences, with a predominance of Mathematics licentiate programs over Physics. The distribution is uneven: the Southeast region concentrates the largest number of offerings, while the North and Central-West regions present significant gaps. Furthermore, the scarcity of infrastructure, student dropout rates, and the lack of updated information on institutional portals reinforce the difficulties for the expansion and consolidation of these programs. It is concluded that the Federal Institutes have great potential to contribute to teacher education in the Exact Sciences, especially in Physics and Mathematics, but they still do so in a limited and unequal manner, facing recurring problems such as high dropout, evasion, and low completion rates. The study, through a content analysis of communications displayed on university websites, evaluated the availability of initial teacher education programs in Physics and Mathematics licentiate courses and presents recommendations to address the challenges faced by these programs.